NDTV wrote about one Swedish business that is foregoing sales staff entirely:

• To use the convenience store you have to download and register an app.
• You then use the app to unlock the front door of the store, and scan everything you intend to take with you into the app.
• The store will then send you a monthly invoice for the things you purchase.
• The store avoids stocking things like cigarettes or medicines since they’re more likely to be stolen.
• A series of surveillance cameras helps ensure that shoppers stay honest. Since you have to sign in the app to unlock and enter the store, there’s a record of exactly whose inside.
• The founder aims to spread the stores to remote areas that have difficulty getting to mega super-centers that countries across the world have been trending towards.

Read shoppers’ reactions, some of the challenges the store has faced, and other details here.

Source: NDTV

Via: Marginal Revolution

Bryan Bishop visited the CinemaCon convention and featured some of the ideas that movie theaters are considering for our snacking future:

• “Walking tacos” are bags filled with nacho chips, with the bag acting as the taco ‘shell’. You open the top of the bag lengthwise then pour on toppings such as melted cheese.
• Extra-large popcorn containers that can fit into your movie theater cup holder for easy sharing (pictured) are planned.
• Robotic popcorn machines that don’t require as much human intervention are being developed.
• Shots of concentrated flavours that can add a tang of cherry to your drink may soon be offered.
• Frozen sodas (“Icees”) are popular in the theater but patrons are usually limited to one flavour. Self-serve mix and match options are being considered.
• It’s not all obesity inducing decadence. Theaters are considering offering lightly salted edamame as a healthy alternative.

Read more, and see pictures here.

Source: The Verge

In an article about the similarities between today’s Venezuela and Zimbabwe of the 2000s, The Economist took a look at some of the creative ways that people are getting around price controls:

• Rice might be price controlled. But add a bit of garlic to it and now its garlic rice and nobody thought to put price controls on that.
• Sell one roll of toilet paper to a consumer and you have to sell it for the official price. Sell a thousand rolls of toilet paper to a consumer and it’s now a business to business sale, which doesn’t have to comply with price controls.
• Transporting goods that will be sold for a pittance in Venezuela? Just drive across the border to Columbia after bribing the poorly paid customs officers, and sell goods for the true price there.

The full article has more details. Read it here.

Source: The Economist

Matt Novak found an interesting quirk about the band Aerosmith’s career:

• As Centives has covered before musicians don’t actually make all that much money from selling their music.
• Instead the real money is in selling merchandise like t-shirts, or going on live tours.
• When Guitar Hero was at its peak Aerosmith made a lot of money from licensing its songs and image to the video game.
• This, in turn, meant a new generation of fans interested in their music which lead to more concert and merchandizing revenues.

Read more here.

Source: Gizmodo

Annalee Newitz reviewed “What’s It Like in Space” a book of factoids from astronauts written by Ariel Waldman describing some of the more surprising things about living in space. Insights include:

• The first astronauts had unexplained headaches. It turns out it was caffeine withdrawal – coffee loses a lot of its potency when freeze dried.
• Soda is banned in space. Due to the lack of gravity any burping would also result in solid food coming up.
• Space suits are designed to allow astronauts to pee. At first there were complaints about some of it leaking. This was because astronauts were able to choose their own condom like catheter size, and would usually opt for “large”.
• NASA used to schedule every single minute of an astronaut’s time in space. This became so arduous that in 1973 a group of them went on strike, refusing to communicate with ground command, until they were given more free time.
• There’s no gravity to tie you to a bed in space. There have been reports of slumbering cosmonauts drifting around the space station gently bumping into walls.

Read the full review of the book here. And you can buy it here.

Source: Ars Technica

The Economist looked at the history of denim jeans in America:

• For Americans jeans inspire images of the rugged wilderness and cowboys in the Wild West.
• This is mostly myth. Cowboys wore canvas and leather trousers.
• It was farmers and factory workers that would don jeans in their daily lives.
• Jeans seem to have become popular during the Depression of the 1930s. Farmers invited others to their lands to pretend at being adventurous cowboys – giving them regular farm clothes to act out their fantasy.
• Tax policy might also have played a hand. Tariffs on French clothing forced stores to focus on domestically available fashions.
• Then in the late 20^th century there was a panic as denim began to be associated with bad boys and gang violence through movies such as “Rebel Without a Cause.”
• In stepped a collective of denim manufacturers which successfully advertised denim as wholesome clothing worn by hard working young people.
• The rest is history – today America’s Presidential candidates frequently don jeans to come across as down to earth hard working individuals.

Read more about jeans, and what they say about America’s relationship with work over here.

Source: The Economist

Ray A. Smith wrote that stores are increasingly doing away with cash registers:

• High end stores feel that cash registers look ugly and don’t fit in with the overall aesthetic.
• Instead sales associates walk around with tablets and help customers pay and check out on the spot.
• After the merchandise is paid for, customers can relax on a plush couch, perhaps with a cup of tea, while their items are taken away to be bagged in a hidden room.
• Doing so makes customers feel special and gets them away from the cattle like feeling of waiting in line.
• Forcing customers to interact with sales associates can also increase sales as they seek to upsell or talk customers into buying additional things.
• Getting rid of cash registers also frees up more real estate to display a store’s wares.

Read about why this could make some customers feel uncomfortable, and how this all ties into big data over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

The Economist had a piece on Baghdad’s restaurant golden age:

• There’s not a lot to do these days in Baghdad so people go out to restaurants.
• It has led to about one new restaurant opening every three days – and few of them fail with profit margins over 50% being fairly common.
• Operating in Baghdad has its idiosyncrasies. The city’s sole food critic can’t give out negative reviews because it costs millions to open up a high end restaurant, but only about $5,000 to order a hit on someone bad for business.
• Parking lots might be overtaken by militant forces that charge exorbitant amounts for “safe” parking.
• Once you get past that though there’s a fair amount of innovation. In one restaurants patrons dine surrounded by art hanging on the walls – all of which is for sale.
• The boom has been particularly good for chefs who can now expect to make as much as $9,000 a month.

Read more about other businesses that have benefitted from the restaurant industries rising star, and many other details here.

Source: The Economist